WWII Diary of Chick Bruns – 70 Years Ago

Jerry was over last night to bomb. They have a new bomb now. A rocket bomb. We could watch them fire it from the planes. He came back over again about 12:30am and I’m telling you my nerves are just shot. They dropped one bomb close by and I shook the rest of the raid. My God I was scared. He came in so low you could bat them down with a club. We built an air raid shelter today. Just like the Jerries build. We dug way down and then covered it up with twigs and dirt. It’s pretty good though. There is very little going on and we are not advancing very much. We’re going to set down in our dug out and talk till bed time.

Funny thing Jerry didn’t even come over last night. He must be slipping. He shelled most of the night though but only a few came close to us. We are moving right after dinner. It’s too quiet here ha, ha. We move up about 5 miles and we can see where the infantry is from here. If we don’t get run out tonight by Jerry it will be a miracle. I am sure tired of war and wish it was over. If they would only send more men over to help us and not let so few Divisions do all of the fighting. Oh well it can’t last forever. They have started shelling this way and a few have come pretty close. I imagine we will be awake most of the night.

Boy they had a big raid last night and I just shook in my sleeping bag. You can hear the plane so plain and hear them go into a dive to drop their bomb. We have really seen some air shows to day. There must be about 50 of our planes over head and when Jerry makes a raid they sure shoot the devil out of them. I saw four planes shot down all at one time. There must have been close to seventy five planes shot down in the last two days. We worked around the supply truck and that was about all for today.

My God! My God! This morning was worse than last night. It started at 5 am. I got up and went toward the beach. Three bombs hit and knocked me down. I got up and ran back to the barracks to get Joe. As I got to the back door down came a bomb and slammed me up against the building. I got up and took off again. We heard two bombs whistling down so we hit the dirt. They just jarred us a little. Soon the raid was over and we came back to the barracks. We are moving the first thing this morning and I’m the happiest guy alive. I don’t mind the raids in the day time, but at night I don’t like it at all. We had just left and here came Jerry. Their bombs just lit behind our barracks that we were in and killed some Negroes and blew part of it up so it’s a good thing we left. They have had five raids so far today so we have missed out on quite a lot. We have a front row seat to watch the raids and then see our planes intercept them and shoot them down. We pitched our tents and went to bed.

It is raining and the weather is bad so Jerry didn’t come over last night. He shelled us most of the night but none came too close. As the weather cleared up this morning over he came, one kid got shot through the leg and I had just moved around the building when a bullet just hit the side of the building. Shrapnel went into my jacket. He was back over at noon again and bombed the docks in town. He has started shelling again and some of them are coming close. The company is all out working laying a mine field as Germany is counter attacking. I still don’t feel very well. This cold really has me stopped. He came back twice this afternoon. Once we went down to see where a Spitfire had crashed and on the way back the 36th Engineers were blowing a building. Here we were waiting for the blast and couldn’t go forward to get to any shelter and Jerry was dropping his bombs. Boy were we sweating. Boy oh boy did Jerry ever get mixed up on his signals. Instead of coming over just after it got dark he came just at dusk. We could see him plain and could follow our tracers perfect. I emptied one whole belt full into one plane, so I at least helped bring one plane down. They were Medium bombers and there was about twenty of them. They didn’t even have time to drop their bombs. I only saw one plane escape. Planes were burning all over. They made up for it though because they came back in about an hour. Let me tell you I was scared. They rained bombs all around us. Flames were lit all around. Joe Watters and I were together and were both shaking like a leaf. Flack was bursting all over the barracks. I gave Joe my Rosary as I thought we were all a goner. Know one will ever know how we all felt. We were all just like trapped rats. Soon the raid let up a little and Joe and I took off for a dugout. Just as we got near it here came a bomb, whistling down. We hit the tunnel on the fly and both of us just shook. There were also some other fellows in there and they were just as scared as we were. So we came back and went to bed.

Boy oh boy what a night. I’m telling you I was so scared that I shook like a leaf. I prayed just as hard as I could pray. Some bombs jarred the plaster out of the walls and I was sure one bomb was going to hit us right in the middle. You could hear it whistle as it came down. They raided all night long, but most of them were out over the sea. We watched about five planes be shot down. This morning at breakfast they were over again. One bomb hit about 200 yrds from us and scared the devil out of me. I sure hope we get out of here soon. I have aged 20 years over last night and this morning. Jerry is not satisfied with bombing us but now the artillery shell are starting to come close. He was over again at dinner and twice at supper time. The bombs hit down in the town at the docks though.

I was sick all day to day. I haven’t had over three hours sleep in the last two nights and with this head cold I have it got me down. I had fever so I went to bed. It did little good to go to bed as I was getting up about every half hour sweating out Jerry bombing us. He dropped one bomb right in front of our barracks and knocked all of the glass out of the windows. Another bomb hit about 300 yards down the road in an ordnance outfit. It killed three men and wounded a few others. I went back to bed right after that but he kept up the attacks all night long.

We move the first thing this morning and it was a good thing as our area was bombed and strafed. We moved down to the water front in some old station barracks. I don’t like it at all. I would much rather be out in the field. We unloaded the truck and in the evening we had to go out and pick up a mine field. There were 1100 mines altogether to pick up. We got home at 4:30 am. They were firing artillery overhead but it was landing down in the town.